Blackburn 0 Newcastle 0: Toon hitting D flat

BLACKBURN 0 -- NEWCASTLE 0

Roque Santa Cruz's header hit the woodword, but was a highlight of a dull match

DULL, dismal, dire, depressing. Try as hard as you like but no thesaurus yet published can sum up just how bad this encounter was.

Nine days ago, these two sides were involved in games that contained a total of 15 goals in encounters that oozed class, thrills and sheer excitement. Blackburn’s 4-3 loss against Wigan and the Magpies’ stunning four-goal comeback against Arsenal showed the Premier League at its best.

Apart from a Roque Santa Cruz header that struck a post after 10 minutes, a Peter Lovenkrands effort that hit the bar four minutes later and a Fabricio Coloccini volley well saved by Paul Robinson after the break, this match contained zero other talking points.

Nothing happened. Zilch. The clock ticked down and the players ran about a bit and that was it.

Both sides needed a player who could muster or muscle up that touch of magic required to make a difference.

The only problem was that Blackburn did not have one, and Newcastle sold theirs to Liverpool for £35million at the end of last month.

Andy Carroll would have been the ideal candidate to snatch a winner from somewhere and the Toon Army must be wondering where the goals are going to come from.

Lovenkrands has the answer, saying: “Everyone will focus on that Andy is away but we have players who can score for us. I got 16 goals last year, that’s only three less than Andy, and I played less games than him. Yes, he’s a big miss. He’s a great player and good luck to him. But we have players here to go and fill his boots. We just need that bit of luck to set us off and I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Blackburn now have almost a fortnight until their next encounter against Aston Villa and they will train in Dubai before that game in order to give their players a break from the bleak weather.

It is a shame they could not provide a ray of sunshine on Saturday. Manager Steve Kean said: “Hopefully they can energise themselves and kick on. I don’t think it was a pretty game to watch and the lads didn’t think it was a pretty game to play in. At least we have something from it.”